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The front-line did a great job of rebounding, but shot poorly from the field and at the line, and also had a combined 15 TO's. Gen Brandon - 17 rebounds, but 4-15 shooting and 7 TO's. Talia - 2-9 from the line. Need to clean this up for us to be a great team.

I guess the positive is that even when ODU got it down to 4, Cal never seemed to panic and had a semblance of an offense and rebuilt the lead.

Exactly. They didn't panic (although at one point during the last 7 minutes I thought Layshia, of all people, was going to kill someone). They kept cool and won. To me, that is a real improvement over last year's November and December games.

Cal's relative success has made me a fan of women's basketball. But it's not easy. Today's basketball game between Cal and Old Dominion was basically unwatchable. Consider these numbers: Cal had 25 turnovers, and was 16-32 from the foul line and this was against a slower and much smaller team. It's more than these crazy stats. It's the number of absolutely stupid plays and calls by players and refs. These girls have been playing since they were kids so you would think their instincts would be sound. But you see a guard rebounding, then moving up-court unaware that 2 defensive players trail and are racing to poke the ball away. Or a 6-2 player gets a rebound and starts to dribble. It's the equivalent of a 7' man doing the same. What are the odds of not turning it over? Or driving the middle against an unmovable wall of three players. Or a ref, and this happened in the game, w/less than 2 seconds in the half and the ball 35 feet from the basket calling a foul on the defensive player after the offensive player fumbled the ball on her own, w/o contact, and then both players scrambled for the ball.

Cal's three headiest players are Jemerigbe--who plays under control, can put the ball on the floor and reach the basket and rarely makes mistakes, Talia and Clarendon. Pierre is pretty sound too. Boyd has miraculous skills--it's hard to imagine a super-quick player who is a better dribbler and passer and you can't press her--but she often tries to do too much. In the last few minutes Old Dominion cut the lead to 4, after it was 8-13 basically the whole game and Gottlieb took her out I bet because she didn't want to risk a turnover. Boyd came back in when Cal increased the lead and just needed to kill time yet twice in a row she drove, risking a turnover. She scored neither time. Cal's bigs, except for Hartman, should never shoot from more than 5, make that 2, feet away. Yet Brandon and Gray continue to do so bricking shot after shot even close in.

Brandon had 17 rebounds, probably 15 in the first half.

If Cal plays like this against a good team they deserve to lose by 50.